Andrew J Ransick

Education

 B.A. New College of the University of South Florida 1982 (Natural Sciences)

M.S. California State University, Northridge 1984 (Cell and Developmental Biology)

Ph.D. University of Texas, Austin 1988 (Zoology)

Current Research Interests

Areas of Interest: Cell and Developmental Biology Experimental Embryology

Specific Focus: Investigate molecular genetic mechanisms by which cell fate is specified in early embryogenesis.

Research Plan: Use a combination of molecular approaches in combination with microsurgical and cytological methods to investigate the molecular genetic mechanisms of determinative events in embryos.

Professional Societies

Society for Developmental Biology

PUBLICATIONS

Ransick,A (1991) Reproductive Cell Specification During Volvox obversus Development. Dev.Biol. 143: 185-198.

Ransick, A and Davidson, E.H. (1993) A complete Second Gut Induced by Transplanted Micromeres in the Sea Urchin Embryo, Science 259: 1134-1138.

Ransick, A., Ernst, S., Britten, R.J. and Davidson, E.H. (1993) Whole Mount In Situ Hybridization Shows Endo 16 to be a Marker for the Vegetal Plate Territory in Sea Urchin Embryos. Mech. of Develop. 42: 117-124.

Ransick, A.(1993) Specification of Reproductive Cells in Volvox. In Evolutionary Conservation of Development Mechanisms, pg. 55-70, (A Spradling ed.), Wiley-Liss, N.Y.

Kirk, M.M., Ransick, A., MacRae, S.E.,and Kirk, D.L. (1993) The Relationship between Cell Size and Cell Fate in Volvox carteri. J.Cell Biology, 123: 191-208.

Yuh, C.H., Ransick, A., Martinez, P., Britten, R.J. and Davidson, E.H. (1994) Complexity and organization of DNA-Protein Interactions in the 5'-Regulatory Region of an Endoderm-Specific Marker Gene in the Sea Urchin Embryo. Mech.of Dev. 47: 165-186.

Ransick, A. and Davidson, E.H. (1995) Micromeres are required for Normal Vegetal Plate Specification in Sea urchin Embryos. Development 121: 3215-3222.

Ransick, A., Cameron, R.A. and Davidson, E.H. (1996) Post-embryonic segregation of the germ line in sea urchins, in relation to indirect development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 93: 6759-6763.

Ransick, A. and Davidson E.H. (1998) Late specification of veg1 lineages to endodermal fate in sea urchin embryos. Dev Biol. 195: 38-48. 

Davidson EH, Cameron RA, Ransick A. (1998) Specification of cell fate in the sea urchin embryo: summary and some proposed mechanisms. Development 125: 3269-90. Review

Rast JP, Amore G, Calestani C, Livi CB, Ransick A, Davidson EH. (2000) Recovery of developmentally defined gene sets from high-density cDNA macroarrays. Dev Biol. 228: 270-86.

Ransick A, Rast JP, Minokawa T, Calestani C, Davidson EH. (2002) New early zygotic regulators expressed in endomesoderm of sea urchin embryos discovered by differential array hybridization. Dev Biol. 246:132-47.

Davidson, E.H., Rast, J.P., Oliveri, P., Ransick, A., Calestani, C., Yuh, C.H., Minokawa, T., Amore, G., Hinman, V., Arenas-Mena, C., Otim, O., Brown, C.T., Livi, C.B., Lee, P.Y., Revilla, R., Rust, A.G., Pan, Z., Schilstra, M.J., Clarke, P.J., Arnone, M.I., Rowen, L., Cameron, R.A., McClay, D.R., Hood, L., Bolouri, H.  A genomic regulatory network for development.(2002) Science 295:1669-78. Review.

Amore G, Yavrouian RG, Peterson KJ, Ransick A, McClay DR, Davidson EH. (2003) Spdeadringer, a sea urchin embryo gene required separately in skeletogenic and oral ectoderm gene regulatory networks. Dev Biol. 261: 55-81.

Sweet H, Amemiya S, Ransick A, Minokawa T, McClay DR, Wikramanayake A, Kuraishi R, Kiyomoto M, Nishida H, Henry J.(2004) Blastomere isolation and transplantation. Methods Cell Biol 74: 243-71.

Ransick A. (2004) Detection of mRNA by in situ hybridization and RT PCR. Methods Cell Biol. 74: 601-20.

Cameron RA, Chow SH, Berney K, Chiu TY, Yuan QA, Kramer A, Helguero A, Ransick A, Yun M, Davidson EH. (2005) An evolutionary constraint strongly disfavored class of change in DNA sequence during divergence of cis-regulatory modules. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102: 11769-74.

Ransick A, Davidson EH. (2006) cis-reulatory processing of Notch signaling input to the sea urchin glial cells missing gene during mesoderm specification. Dev Biol 297(2): 587-602.